What is left of me without you
by gayalghtwd
Summary: The phone rings: "Emily Prentiss". "Emily... it's Hotch. Listen, I've to tell you something, so sit down." "You're scaring me, what's going on?" "Emily... Derek is dead"
1. The call

It had been almost four years since Emily Prentiss left the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, and now she was the Unit Chief of an Interpol Unit, in London. It was 8 a.m. and she was in her office, meeting with Clyde Easter, the one who gave her the job since he had been promoted, when her phone rang. "Excuse me a minute" she said. She stood up and walked right out the office, closing the door behind herself, even if the walls that separated her office from the rest of the place were made of glass, so Clyde could still see her. She answered the phone "Emily Prentiss" "Emily, it's Hotch". There was something strange in his voice. "Ehi, is everything alright?" "Emily, you'd better sit down, I need to tell you one thing." Now she was really scared. "Hotch, you're scaring me, what is it?" "It's Derek... Derek is dead"


	2. Pass out

That couldn't be true. It took her a second to figure out what those words really meant, and then everything went dark and she was on the floor. Hotch was still on the other side of the phone, he had heard the noise of her body hitting the ground, just like Clyde did from inside the office. He was looking at her when she passed out, and he immediately stood up and ran to her. "Emily, Emily!" He grabbed the phone she was still holding in her hand, and when he saw the name on the screen he understood that something really bad had to have happened. "Aaron Hotchner, this is Clyde Easter, can you tell me what the hell did you tell her to make her pass out?" while waiting for an answer, he looked at a young agent and told him to call an ambulance, seen that she still wasn't waking up. "It's about Derek Morgan. He died last night" "Wait, Derek Morgan is the one she always talks about, I've always thought he was the closest member of your team to her." "Yeah, he was... how is she?" "She's still not waking up, the ambulance is on its way. I'll let you know something when she wakes up." Aaron was grateful that he didn't have to ask for that. Reality was that even thinking of being the one to tell her what happened had been terribly hard. They were still at the hospital, everyone was still crying in the other room, but she deserved to know it immediately. When he hung up the phone, he finally let the tears start coming out.


	3. Movie day

_A text lit up her phone's screen: "Hey, still no programs for the afternoon?" It was Sunday and Derek and she had talked about their lazy/boring weekend the previous day. "Nope" she answered. It took him less than 30 seconds to answer "I'm waiting for you at my place in 20 minutes. Movie day" God, she loved them! "I'm in. Have you got pop corns?" "Of course I do" "Then I'll be there in 15" She knew he would have smiled at that last message (and he did), she put on the first clothes she found and went out._

 _When she walked up Derek's porch, he opened her the door with a shining smile on his face. "Wowowow, I thought I said movie day, not 'Night looking for a hot partner'." He wasn't disappointed with the sight, but Emily still couldn't understand what he was talking about, until she looked down at herself. She was wearing a not too long red dress, which covered her body showing her shapes. God, what was she thinking when she put that dress on? Actually, she wasn't thinking at all, she was just excited for the afternoon she was gonna spend with Morgan. "Oh my... you believe me when I tell you I didn't mean to wear this... I just took the first thing I found around and put it on" She wasn't so embarrassed though, it was Morgan after all._

 _They were sitting on the sofa while he asked her "So, if this is the first thing you've found, who did you go on a date with last night?" He was switching on the tv, giving her some glances with one of those malicious smile of his... "No one, no date" she wasn't gonna start it "So you're just saying you dress like this to go to throw out the rubbish? Come on Em, you're..." wait wait wait, was Derek Morgan embarrassed about his best friend looking damn hot in a red dress? Because that's what he was thinking, she was damn hot. "You're pretty beautiful" Emily was surprised, 'cause he looked in difficulty, so now she was the one having fun "I guess I should say thank you". They looked at each other for a second before they both started laughing._

 _They were about to start the movie, but she realized she was really uncomfortable with that dress, so she asked him "You know, it will be good-looking, but have you got anything I could wear instead of this terrible dress?" "I don't know, let me check" he answered, while disappearing in his bedroom. After a couple of minutes, he came back holding an enormous blue T-shirt "I've just got this one, it's the biggest I've found considering I really couldn't give you any of my sweatpants to wear under that" "That will be perfect, thank you" she stood up and walked to his room, then she closed the door. She took off the dress and left it on a chair, and put on the T-shirt. That was the biggest one he had he said, but even if it reached half of her thighs she still felt a bit like she was gonna be naked in front of Derek. Anyway she wasn't, so she finally walked out the room and sat on the sofa next to him. She didn't notice that Derek was staring at her in a way, and thinking something like 'Why the hell I never noticed how beautiful my best friend is while wearing blue?' He thought that, but he did notice how much it suited her before._

 _She sat beside him and he clicked on play. Movie day meant one thing: they would watch two movies. The first, would be a crime movie, one that aired in cinemas recently and none of them had seen yet. They would watch the murder at the beginning, than they would spend the rest of the movie without listening to the cops or the FBI agents, they would make the profile and than come to a conclusion in something like 15 minutes. Than they would skip to the final 20 minutes, when it comes to the action, and would just look while the agents arrested the murderer (who would be, of course, the one they predicted)._

 _The second movie, instead, would be an action film, like a Marvel one, which they both loved. During that, they would stay in a religious silence, paying attention to everything that happened like if they were on a crime scene at work, but they would laugh or cry (that was only Emily) or even say something like "that's not gonna work, what are you thinking?!"_

 _It was 8 p.m. when the second movie ended "That was a really good one" Emily said. "Look, it's dinner time, you wanna stay here?" Derek asked, hopeful he would spend the evening with her. "That sounds like a plan. What do you want to eat, we order a pizza or something?" "You know, we could even cook together" he proposed. What a innocent guy! She started to doubt he knew her so well after all. She started laughing and told him "To me it's fine, just you need to know that I'm terrible at cooking, so you'll be doing all the work." "It's no problem, it's good to cook with someone around"._

 _So he started to take the ingredients and prepare them, and then he started. He started to move all around te kitchen like a tornado, but with kind of a grace, he started to explain her everything, telling her to get closer and look at what he was doing, and while he explained she looked sincerely amazed and curious about what he was saying, and he just smiled at that, without saying anything though. At some point, he gave her the spoon and took her hand, and then he gently helped her to turn it in the pot, while staying behind her. "You know, it's kind of a curse, everything I touch while cooking at the end basically sucks, so don't be surprised if that will be the result" "Oh come on Em, there's my touch too, so it'll be perfect."_

 _After 30 minutes of Derek teaching/cooking, they ate, and when they tasted the pasta Emily "helped prepare", Derek just said "You see, this is great!" and she answered, trying not to give him the satisfaction "Yeah, it's not as bad as I thought"_

 _After they ended dinner, they were putting the dishes in the sink, and Derek said, in a whisper, but loud enough so that she heard him "Still not wanna tell me who the guy is, uh?" She looked at him surprised and said "Are you serious? I'm not gonna tell you!" She wasn't upset, she was amused, and while she put the last dish in the sink he took a pillow from the sofa and throw it toward her right while she was turning back. He hit her, of course. "What the... oh you'd better not start this with me" she said, and he answered, daring her "I'm afraid I already have". So she grabbed the pillow from the ground while he was taking another one from the sofa. Luckily he didn't have a lot of stuff on his furniture, so they wouldn't have broken anything. She got closer and started hitting him while he was disarmed, but at some point he blocked her and pushed her on the sofa. Now he was on top of her, keeping her arms blocked, and she was laughing so much she could barely breath. "I think we've got a winner, so, who's the guy?" He asked. "Derek, come on..." she begged, but he wasn't gonna give up "Oh you're not gonna get away with this so easily, who's him?" She finally decided that, after all, he could know about him, it was nothing serious, at least not yet, so what was the matter? Alright, maybe she had a bit enjoyed looking at him trying to find out about this mysterious guy (ok, she had loved it!). "Fine, fine, I'll tell you. Do you remember about that case in San Francisco, and the English guy from the other FBI Unit?" "Mick Rawson? The one who spent the whole time looking at you and flirting? Of course I remember. So you're dating?" "We've been out just a couple of times, it's nothing serious" "But you didn't wanna tell me" "You don't have to know really everything about me, you know that right?" She laughed. "Now am I free to go?" He smiled_ _"Of course, but don't forget your red dress here" "Why, 'cause some of the girls you date could think you have a girlfriend?"_

 _No, because he knew theirs was just a beautiful friendship and nothing more, he had known it since the first days she spent with the team, she was the perfect partner, the one he needn't talk to, just a nod or a glance were enough. So he couldn't really stand having that cursed red dress around to remind him of how it suited her, that would be destabilizing. "No, I just thought you didn't want to walk from your car to your apartment with only that T-shirt on" She smiled and nodded, agreeing with that point. She looked at him smiling just for another second, and then she went to his room to get changed again._


	4. Waking up

The first thing she heard was the sound of the machines, then she felt the smell, and finally she opened her eyes. She was at the hospital, but why? When the answer came up to her mind, she felt a weight on her chest and started crying. "Emily, Emily you need to calm down, slow your breath, slow your breath" he kept saying it but she couldn't hear him. She kept seeing Derek's face, and than Hotch saying those words "Derek is dead, Derek is dead, Derek is dead". That dream she had made had been like a cold shower. The machines started to make a loud noise, a doctor stepped in the room, but she didn't see or hear anything. At some point, she felt a warmth and closed her eyes.—

They had moved to Rossi's place "How did Emily take it?" the oldest member of the team asked Hotch "Actually, she is at the hospital, she passed out right after I told her." His phone rang. "Oh, it's Clyde Easter, he's with her." He answered the phone. Everyone now was looking at him with apprehension for their friend "Hotchner, how is she?" They all kept their eyes on him, trying to understand what was going on "Alright, thank you" he said, before hanging up the phone. Spencer, whose face was all red because of the tears, asked "So, is she alright?" He couldn't think of Emily alone in London facing that terrible news all alone, he hoped she could reach them as soon as possible, so they could face it together. "They took her to the hospital and after a couple of hour she woke up, but when she did she started to panic and couldn't breath, so they sedated her. As soon as she wakes up they'll try to make her calm down and she'll be able to come here". Spencer had expected it, Rossi made a look like if what Hotch just said had hit him in the stomach, and JJ just whispered "Oh my god", while Will embraced her. Penelope just started crying louder, she hadn't stopped since they told her that Derek was gone. She just couldn't. She was starting to wonder if she would have ever been able to.—

She started to move in the bed before opening her eyes, and when Clyde noticed it he was prepared "Emily, it's Clyde, can you hear me?" She nodded. She felt something was wrong, she felt her whole body heavier than usual and her head hurt, but she didn't remember why. "Why am I here? What happened?" "I'll tell you, but you must stay calm when I do, understood?" Now she was looking at him. She was so fragile, he couldn't believe that she had to find out what happened again, and most important he wasn't sure he could be the one to tell her. "It's about Derek. He... he died last night".

Here she was. Everything started to come back to her mind, Hotch's call, the doctor who sedated her, everything was clear. "No, no, no, no..." she started whispering "Emily, stay with me, listen to me" she didn't seem to hear him, but he knew she did, she just didn't want to listen "You know you should be in Washington right now, and if you calm down you'll be out of here in half an hour and than right on a plane, I promise you, but you need to calm down." After those last words she stopped talking. She looked at him for a couple of seconds, to process what he just said. After that, she was getting up and saying "What are you waiting for, you want to stay in here while I change my clothes?" There was only Washington. She couldn't let the grief win while all of her friends were on the other side of the ocean. She would've cried when she was there, she had already messed up things enough.


	5. Back together

She arrived at the airport at 10 p.m. Hotch volunteered to pick her up and drive her to Rossi's house, but she refused. Coming back in D.C. was already a lot to deal with after all those years, and she wanted to handle it alone until she got there, so she called a cab. The truth is that she never thought of Washington without Derek, and she just wanted to postpone as much as she could the time she would see the others, 'cause by that time she would have broken up, and she didn't know when she would have been able to get the pieces back together.—

While walking up the path and the porch of Rossi's mansion, she could see her friends through the big windows. They were sitting on the sofa or the armchairs. 'They're waiting for me' she thought, while finally ringing the bell. It was Rossi to open the door. His eyes were all red, and when he saw her he couldn't stop the tears. Emily was like a daughter to him, the same way Derek was like a son, and he couldn't handle seeing her after what happened in London.

"Emily" he could just say, and while he let her come inside he hugged her. She hugged him too, but David could feel her rigidity, like if she was trying to protect herself from feeling true emotions. Anyway, he chose not to say anything, because even if he was suffering he was still a profiler, and maybe the hard part of that job was avoiding profiling the people you love and know better than anyone else in the whole world.

They entered the living room and everybody stood up and hugged her. JJ was heartbroken, Spencer was trying to be strong, even if the amount of emotions that were threatening him was enormous, but he had been through that before, with Maeve, and now he wanted to make the difference for those who he thought would have suffered the most: Penelope and Emily. What he didn't know was that they were all suffering the same, and that he was the one who would have been helped by his friends. Penelope was so destroyed that she couldn't say anything, not a joke came out of her mouth to announce the arrival of Emily Prentiss in DC after two years. And Aaron. She had never seen him like that. No, now that she thought about it she had. When Haley had died. That was the only time he wasn't trying to hide his emotions in order to be strong for the team. He hugged her, and whispered in her ear "We can talk whenever you want." "Now" she answered, and without speaking a word she went out, Aaron behind her.

When they were finally alone, he told her, even if he was looking at her back "Emily, you need to stop hiding your emotions. He wouldn't have wanted it." She started to shake, and than screamed, while crying "You don't know it! You can't know it! He is not here, and he will never be again!" And while those words left her lips, she realized what they meant. "He's gone..." Aron didn't hug her, he just got closer, and told her "You don't have to face it alone, you know it. We'll be there, we are here. You have to promise me that you won't keep your emotions from us, or they'll destroy you. We can't lose you too." And with those final words, he left her alone.


	6. Sleep baby, sleep

_JJ had been kidnapped and Emily had immediately taken the Interpol jet to get there. Now she was safe, in Will's arms, and they were all at Rossi's mansion._

 _She had finally had the chance to meet Alex Blake, the agent who replaced her. She had heard so many great things about her, even if at first Garcia didn't really like her... anyway, she hadn't slept in over 24 hours, counting the flight and all the rest, so she was a bit tired._

 _She was sitting on the sofa next to Derek, and they were laughing at one of Reid's jokes. Actually, they weren't laughing because the joke was funny, but because it wasn't, and Reid just couldn't figure out why they thought so. That look... yeah, that was one of the things she missed, between the many._

 _"Are you alright?" She turned her head to look at Derek. He was staring at her, but why? "Yeah, why?" "Emily, you really do look exhausted" Oh, come on, after a year and a half he could still see what she tried to hide? She had always wondered if she liked or hated that side of him, the one that cared so much about her to make her feel like if all of her deepest feelings were naked in front of him. Maybe she both loved and hated it. Anyway, she didn't want to waste the time she had with him to worry about that, she just nodded. "Come here" he whispered, making a sign with his hand, asking her to rest her head on his legs. "Derek, I'll be in the States just for a few hours, I don't wanna waste the time we have sleeping" "20 minutes won't make the difference" he replied. She looked at him and couldn't keep arguing. While resting her head on his legs, she gave him a serious look, and told him "Just 20 minutes, not a second more than that." "Of course princess, at your command" he laughed, and she closed her eyes, while smiling._

 _After she fell asleep, practically one second later, he started to fiddle with her hair, gently. Meanwhile Alex Blake was having the chance to know the agent she had replaced by staring at that scene._

 _She had heard a lot about her, even before joining the team: after all, when someone is considered dead and then comes back after half a year, it's a big news, even in the FBI. In the beginning of her job as a profiler, the ones who talked about her the most were Penelope and Spencer, because it was their way to fill the emptiness she had left. Rossi occasionally told them about a price she had received or a difficult case she had solved, so proud of her. Instead, she had always had the impression that Derek and Hotch felt so bad about her being gone that they desperately tried to avoid the subject, at least for the first period._

 _After some months, while going to a crime scene, Derek and Alex were alone in the SUV, and while talking about partners and colleagues, he finally told her about Emily "You know, I used to have a partner before Emily. Her name was Elle. After less than two years, she left. She had been shot, and after that this work was driving her crazy, every day a little bit more than the previous one. I trusted her, and one day she left, without saying goodbye or anything. I thought I'd never be able to trust another colleague like I trusted her, but than Emily came to replace her._

 _You know what was the first thing she did at the round-table? She translated an Arabian text, written from a terrorist, like if it was the less she could do to show us that she deserved to be a part of our team. That was incredible, I have never met anyone who knows as many languages as Emily does."_

 _Then he just kept driving, but he had spoken those words with so much love that Alex stayed surprised for the rest of the ride._

 _Anyway, they looked so intimate, even right there in front of them all. Two of the strongest people she had ever had the chance to know that put down all of their shields to truly see each other. He was still caressing her, while Alex got closer to him, and whispered "You two are beautiful, I see what you meant when you told me about her." Derek smiled, and then came back to look at her. The only thing he could think was 'God, I'm so lucky she is here and alive.' But on the other hand, he couldn't stand the fact that even after the death of Ian Doyle she felt the needing to go away. Didn't she feel safe, right, beside him? Didn't he make her feel protected? God, he hated that man. But when she opened her eyes, and looked into his, he understood that until she would give him those looks, she would trust him with her life. Because it was just how it worked between them. "You good?" She asked, 'cause she could always notice when something was bothering him. "Yeah, I'm good"_


	7. The morning after

She woke up in the middle of the night, shocked. What was that? It was the second time she had one of those... flashbacks? What did they mean? Every time she would have closed her eyes to sleep she would have had one? She couldn't stand it. She tried to fall asleep again, but didn't, and spent the rest of the night looking at the ceiling.

She was staying at Rossi's place, so when the sun rose and the light came inside through the windows, she walked down the stairs to find Penelope, Rossi and Spencer. Rossi couldn't let them go home all alone, so he made them stay. Probably he didn't want to stay alone either.

Anyway, they were already awake, so she assumed that none of them had slept a lot that night. "Good morning Emily" Rossi said, with a soft smile on his face. " 'morning" Spencer and Garcia said in unison. "Guys, I... I gotta ask you one thing... How did exactly Derek die?" Yeah, because she had spent the past 24 hours crying over her dead friend, but she didn't ask the question. They were sitting around the small table in the kitchen, and were all busy preparing their breakfast, but when those words left her lips they froze for a long second, and then looked up at her.

Garcia had already tears in her eyes, and Rossi was about to answer, but Spencer talked first. That surprised Emily, a lot. Of course she knew what Spencer had been through during those years, while she was away, and she was sure he had grown up, matured, but she couldn't have ever imagined that he would be the one to keep it together the most. "We were at a big house, and we were looking for a potential victim. When the house owner didn't come to open the door, we broke in. We didn't have any bulletproof vest, because we weren't expecting to find the UnSub in that moment. But Derek kicked down the door and in less than one second he got shot. He was waiting for us and didn't have any hesitation." She didn't need to hear anything else, or she didn't want. She couldn't handle it, and to make Spencer know it, she showed him her hand, a gesture to tell him to stop. He nodded.

They stayed there for a few minutes, in silence, when Emily broke the silence, again "I wanna see him. Can I see him?" That was even a bigger question than the previous she had asked. The others looked at each other confused, they didn't really expect something like that to be asked, at least not in that moment. "Of course you can kiddo. We have called Derek's mom and sisters, they should be coming by now, and will be at the..." "morgue, that's fine" she said, referring to the word Dave hesitated to speak out loud. "Guys, you don't need to worry about me" she said, desperately trying to convince them that she was fine. "Emily..." that was Garcia, speaking for the first time that morning (without counting the 'good morning' she had barely whispered), while sobbing "if you're gonna be even through half what Derek has when you 'died', then you're gonna need a lot more worrying than this. Because Derek was beside you when you left us. Because the person he blamed for your death was out there, and he was willing to give his life to find him and kill him. But you haven't. That guy is already dead, Spencer shot him right after he shot Derek. He had anger, and you're gonna have grief, a lot, too much to carry it all on your shoulders. We know how strong you are, you don't have to show us anything." Emily looked at her. Everything she had said, she agreed with it. But was she really that strong?


	8. This isn’t goodbye

She walked into the morgue room where Derek's body was placed. He was covered with a sheet, his eyes closed. He looked like he was asleep, like if he was having a good dream. He looked in peace.

She slowly walked toward the table. "Hey, what the hell is this mess? How is that possible that the minute I'm gone you screw everything up?" She was talking like she used to do when they were joking, but the smile on her face was fake this time. She sat down on the chair beside him. "Oh Derek..." this time the smile faded away, and tears formed in her eyes. "How could you do that? How could you leave me? Of course I don't blame you, Penelope just ended reminding me of the fact that there's no one left to blame, not even the bastard who did this to you. She's strong. She's your Baby Girl, and she's gonna be until she dies and after, and I'm gonna remind her of it every single day."

"How can I move on after something like this? God, you had to die to make me see what a mistake was to move to London, and for what? Because this place didn't feel like home anymore? You were my home. I've always seen it, but never realized it. How can I find someone else to work with, another partner, and find the way to build a relationship with him, when I remember of you calling me Princess or protecting me every time, even in the field some times, even if I didn't need any protection? How can I keep working without knowing that, even if we had an ocean between us, I could come back anytime, and sit around a table and talk about anything just with glances and looks, with you. I... I don't think I can do this. But I will, anyway. I'm falling apart, I'm breaking, and then I'll get up again, because of the people who need the same help I need. Because of the 'pretty boy' you left, your little brother. You had told me he had grown up, but I didn't think that much. Anyway, he's gonna keep his emotions away from us, but I'll force him to talk, because I suppose that's what you all did with him when I died and I'm sure that's what you did when the love of his life died, because you eventually told me about that dark period."

She stopped, she wiped her tears and kept going. "But how can I expect you to believe me when I tell you that I'm going to watch over them when you don't know what I decided..." she smiled, like if he could be happy and smile to her back when he would have heard the news "I'm coming back. I know, I know, you probably want to kill me right now, because I'm coming back now that you're gone, but I also know that you wanted me to do that, because you didn't want me to face this alone. And, I'm gonna keep all the promises I just made."

"I know there's someone else who has just come to see you, so I need to go. If there weren't, I would probably stay here for the rest of the day, or the week, or who knows... This isn't goodbye, I..." she didn't know what else to say, she just took some long seconds to look at his beautiful face, because she wanted to remember every single detail of it "I tremendously love you, Derek Morgan. I hope you'll remember it, wherever you are." She softly caressed his cheek with the back of her hand "I love you" she said, and left the room.

Hotch, who had come to say goodbye too, hadn't looked at what was going on through the windows of the room, same as the others, because that was a so intimate moment no body would have ever violated. She walked out from that room and looked destroyed, but at the same time better than the previous night. "Are you fine?" The Unit Chief whispered, when she came toward him. "Yeah. Listen, I was wondering... Do you need an experienced profiler?" She weakly smiled at him, and he smiled too, because he was going to ask her to come back in that right moment, when he had seen her walking out of the room. "It depends... do I already know her?" "Yeah, I think you two might have met, once or twice..." she answered.


End file.
